Pacquiao-Algieri brings in just over 300,000 PPV buys, says Glaser

By Chris Williams: In what has to be interpreted as terrible news for Top Rank and WBO welterweight champion Manny Pacquiao (57-5-2, 38 KOs), his fight against Chris Algieri (20-1, 8 KOs) last month brought in just over 300,000 pay-per-view buys, according to boxing businessman Rick Glaser. The 300,000, if true, is the lowest pay-per-view number Pacquiao has brought in since earlier in his career.

The reason why it’s such a negative thing that Pacquiao brought in such a low figure for his fight against Algieri is due to Pacquiao wanting to face Floyd Mayweather Jr. If Pacquiao only brought in a little over 300,000 for the Algieri fight then it makes it difficult for him and his promoter Bob Arum to justify asking for a purse split of 60-40 or better.

Wow, horrible, #Pacquiao PPV reputedly did just over 300,000 buys & its the lowest #Manny#PPV figure since becoming a super star. #boxing

With pay-per-view totals of 300,000 for the Algieri fight, Pacquiao would be lucky to get a 70-30 purse split for a fight against Mayweather. The thing is it’s highly unlikely that Arum and Pacquiao would ever accept a 70-30 purse split in a fight against Mayweather. But with Pacquiao’s horrible PPV numbers for his fight against Brandon Rios, and now his possibly poor numbers against Algieri, you can make an argument that Pacquiao doesn’t even deserve a 70-30 purse split for a Mayweather fight.

I think Pacquiao would be lucky if he got an 80-20 split for a fight against Mayweather. If Mayweather is pulling in well over 1 million pay-per-view buys for his fights, and Pacquiao is bringing in just over 300,000 buys, then it doesn’t make sense for Mayweather to give Pacquiao a 60-40 or even 70-30 split. We’re talking 80-20 here.

In hindsight, it was a horrible idea by Arum to have Pacquiao fight the little known Algieri instead of a better known fighter that casual boxing fans had heard of and care about. Pacquiao should have vetoed that idea when Arum brought it up, because it didn’t take a genius to see that the fight wouldn’t do well on pay-per-view.